MTG Salvation

I was spectating a game online and saw a brew using this card and an impressive array of creatures with Evoke, namely Mulldrifter and Mournwhelk. This seems like a very strong combo.

We could even recur this enchantment and dead Evoke creatures with stuff like Auramancer. Seems like there might be some potential there.

Any thoughts?

I like it! Turn 3 draw four + get a 2/2 flyer is amazing. Can it be done without the deck being super janky or durdling the first two turns though, that is the question.

Edit: Any idea what his actual list is?

I think the deck has potential for some very explosive plays, and I was pretty impressed with some parts of the deck.

I asked the player for his list, and he kindly gave it to me. Here it is:



This deck looks highly experimental. You can see lots of 1 and 2-ofs, trying to get a sense of what's good and what isn't in the deck. Running all five colours may not even be necessary. The deck fixed its colours by turn five all three games, which is rather impressive. It's also blending a few strategies, going with some form of Hexproof and Domain value cards.

All in all, this is value-town.

I'm going to try my own spin on this deck, but maybe going Bant instead of 5-colour. It seems to me like the really good Evoke creatures are Mulldrifter, Walker of the Grove and Æthersnipe (in that order). Though Mournwhelk grants a ton of card advantage, but it's not great against all decks, and it's in a colour that may not bring all that much to the table, unless we go with recursion, in which case it could be really good. It's too bad White got really bad Evoke cards at common.

Personally I think three colors is a lot in pauper. UW seems to be the best bet, using cantrips to find the pieces with turn 1-2. I am posting my initial deck idea below. It strives too hard at getting the deck to "go off" to be good, but I will need to do some testing to see what elements need to be cut. The blinking spells let us get the most out of evoke over the course of the game.

I don't think you have enough creatures for the deck to function.

If you play your deck as a two-colour deck with a splash, Bant could be very easy to do. Green fixes colours very easily, and Blue cantrips help the deck come together easily. White would be a splash, I imagine.

Wow, when that deck goes off it really goes off. I think there are too many copies of Custodi Squire. It is an amazing card, but it can't be cast until late game.

4 Custodi Squire seems like too many to me as well. I would also prefer Mnemonic Wall over the 'mancer.

A wee little splash for Walker wouldn't be possible?

Is 12 Blink effects too many?

EDIT: Did a couple test runs, and the curve is just way too high. There just aren't enough cheap removal spells and cantrips to make it to the late game to abuse of most of these engines. The deck basically loses unless it goes T2 Angelic, T3 Evoke.

I think Esper might be the best build. We lose on Walker of the Grove, but Mournwhelk is mad value and Black brings Undying Evil, Gurmag Angler and some removal.

Blinking the dudes with Momentary Blink also seems good value since it has a flashback cost.

Quote from Zephyr Scarlet »

I think Esper might be the best build. We lose on Walker of the Grove, but Mournwhelk is mad value and Black brings Undying Evil, Gurmag Angler and some removal.

Blinking the dudes with Momentary Blink also seems good value since it has a flashback cost.

Quote from Xyx »

If only Shriekmaw were common.

What do you think of blinking Ubul Sar Gatekeepers?

Both black and green might be fair, but I think I am going to stick with two colors instead of three. I want the mana to be silky smooth.

My current version probably has too many cantrips, and has cut back heavily on the flicker effects in favor of curfew and more missionaries. The deck gets a little less out of the evoke creatures but also durdles less.



Edit: One thing I run into a lot a lot when goldfishing this deck is having both a Mulldrifter and an Aethersnipe in hand. The Aethernsipe is the bigger of the two, and massively effects the board, but the mulldrifter draws into gas and makes it tremendously more likely the deck will get another angelic renewal. Against aggro the snipe is clearly better, and against control the drifter is, but a lot of matchups I don't know which to go for.

Evoke-abusing decks should probably run some number of Springleaf Drum (3?) if they plan on evoking and using blink or Undying Evil in the same turn. You have time to tap the evoke dude for mana, which speeds the plan up a turn. Not needed if you rely solely on Angelic Renewal, but useful nonetheless as you get a free mana tap from the dude before it is "renewed".

I agree with Upkeep's analysis that this deck wants to go t2 Angelic Renewal and t3 evoke - and even that may be too slow and non-interactive against infect, bogles, goblins etc. Trying to fill the deck with even less optimal "combos" makes matters worse. There once was a deck called Dimir Trinkets that abused Undying Evil and Mulldrifter as well as a few other suicidal cards like Crypt Rats. However, abuse of Undying Evil was only one of the things that made it good - the power of Trinket Mage and all the answers and CA in dimir colors were the other parts.

My point is, to build this archetype well, we should probably start looking at UW(x) decks that already make good use of Mulldrifter and ask if they could make good use of Angelic Renewal. Would Caw Blade want Angelic Renewal, for instance? I also think the incorporation of 2-3 Custodi Squire is really solid as they are basically indestructible with Angelic Renewal.

Another idea is Mistmoon Griffin. Consider this creature base:
4 Mulldrifter
4 Aethersnipe
4 Mistmoon Griffin
4 Angelic Renewal
2-3 Custodi Squire

Combined with lots of cheap early disruption. You evoke turn 3 and either get back an evoker from t2 Renewal or set up your yard for t4 Mistmoon Griffin which is essentially a delayed Angelic Renewal for 2 mana more with a 2/2 flyer on top - a very good deal IMO. If they kill the griffin, they suffer, if they don't they still have a 2/2 flyer to worry about.

2 Custodi Squires go "infinite" and I just can't say no to that kind of inevitability.

One Angelic Renewal and 1 Custodi Squire goes infinite too!

Don't forget that you can curfew in response to an evoke creature ETB, so you can reuse the evoke creature on two cards.

I like the black splash, but I think you may want to grab Curfew as another Undying Evil.

I have been working on another copy, thinking of using Exploit as an additional form of evoke.



Rhystic Study is there as a response to longer games, I would probably run Keep Watch or another draw spell in normal games.

Oh, that is mean. Our own little turbo-fog combo.

I find it a little odd that this archetype had not shown up in a big way before, considering how many permutations there are.